Blog Archive

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Here is video of Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, April 9, 2010. Perry said the United States is in a great struggle right now between "Socialism" and "Democracy," in the wake of what President Obama and the Democrats are trying to do in Washington. He said that with current leadership, America is definitely "tilted in the wrong direction."

With all due respect to Gov. Perry, why doesn't he bring the Constitution into these discussions like Judge Andrew Napolitano does?

In fact, if citizens were taking the responsibility to make sure that their children were being taught the Constitution and its history, then schoolchildren would be able to stop Obamacare dead in its tracks by arguing the following.

The main reason that we're having major problems with Constitution-ignoring Congress is this, IMO. Activist justices in the 1930s and 40s perverted the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses so that Congress could overstep its constitutional limits. But in order to do so, outcome-driven justices had to ignore Jefferson's writings about these clauses. Here's what Jefferson had to say about these clauses.

First, here's Jefferson's common-sense clarification of the General Welfare Clause.

"1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, "to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare." For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please." --Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.

Note that Jefferson clearly indicated that good intentions on Congress's part are no substitute for enumerated powers when it comes to making legislation.

Here's an excerpt from Jefferson's writings on the Commerce Clause.

"For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes." --Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.

With terms like “does not extend” and “exclusively,” Jefferson made it clear that Congress has no authority to interfere with intrastate commerce.

The bottom line concerning things like constitutionally unauthorized federal Obamacare is this. The Democratic-controlled 111th Congress is wrongly ignoring its Article V requirement to petition the states to amend the Constitution for new powers for Congress. The state power-usurping Congress is instead relying on the USSC's perversions of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses in the 1940s to make illegal legislation like Obamacare, legislation based on constitutionally nonexistent federal government powers.

Finally, voters need to elect pro-state sovereignty lawmakers to both the federal and state legislatures in this year's midterm elections. Then hopefully, pro-state sovereignty lawmakers will work together to restore state sovereignty, putting the federal government back on its constitutional leash.

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